[wade clark]

Randy,
That Mo real estate just cost me 3 hours of my evening! Lots of great farms there! I never got through them all! I saved it to my favorites.
Thanks!
Wade

[Randy48]

Glad it helped. MO is a pretty good place to live and the hunting and fishing is great!

[Whiskers]

Wade

Lots of nice farms in Kentucky for sale, four seasons, long growing seasons, and lots of hunting and fishing. Kentucky has reintroduced wild elk from the western states and they are thriving. The elk program started about six years ago and we now have the largest elk herd east of the Mississippi approx. 8000 animals. I left (Kentucky) in 1980 curtousy of uncle sam U.S. Air Force, lived in Arizona, Colorado, N.Carolina and Georgia. I really enjoyed my time in these other places, but I couldn't wait to get back home so I did just that in 1998. The archery season here starts this weekend, it's 137 days long, lookin forward to that. Sorry I rambled on but there are lots of farms here for sale.

[Paul_Guraedy]

Wade, you should also take a look at the Ozarks. I can only speak for the western areas; but, if you stay a little ways out from any of the (few) cities, land is undervalued. We are 50 miles from Fayetteville, 80 miles from Springfield, MO, 40 miles from Branson, MO, all with excellent medical facilities, shopping and woodcarving clubs.

In the "Walmart homeland" it is difficult to get more than a half hour or so from a supercenter. Several farms around me have changed hands in the past couple of years for between $500 and $750 an acre (but the price is rising fast). My advice would be to look at places without existing structures. Around here, doublewides (3 bedroom, 2 bath) are the norm and can be put on-site, turn-key, for about $50,000. You can take a look on the internet by googling Arkansas farms. But, don't pay too much attention to the listings as far as value is concerned. These are the "show places" that tend to sell well above the average.

"Living expenses" around here are well below average. But, the thing that makes this a nice retirement area; makes it a rough area to work for a living. None of us retiree's expect to pay much above minimum wage (if that). About 3 years ago, I paid a top notch carpenter $12.50 an hour to put a porch and metal roof on my farmhouse (I would probably have to pay close to $15 today).

Here in the higher part of the Ozarks, we are zone 6 growing season (raise all but the most tropical of plants). Snows generally don't arrive before December (most years it will be January) and end around the first week of March. We usually have 3-4 snowfalls that range around 5-6 inches and are gone in a few days. I have been here for 10 years and have only once gone beyond 3 days of not being able to get out because of ice or snow.

I am not trying to "sell" this area. If life wasn't so easy here (we inherited a 652 acre ranch), I would sell this place and move back to the desert, which is my real love. Several friends have asked me about the Ozarks and this is what I tell them, "Living is cheap here. Winter is short, humid and cold, summer is long, humid and hot, spring is short and autum is absolutely magnificent and not near long enough. Neighbors are friendly to the point of being nosy. They expect to help and be helped when jobs calling for more than one person, or for your/their (often assumed) expertise, are concerned. It is an area suspicious of government, accepting of schools that were 'good enough for me and my folks' and conservative in its vaules where the first question asked is usually, 'What church do you go to?' Surprisingly, any answer including 'none' is acceptable (I haven't figured that one out yet)."
Good luck on your relocation, wherever you choose.

[wade clark]

Paul,
Let's see...$750 per acre, 652 acres...that's $489,000...does that tempt you to sell and go back to the desert?
The Ozarks are beautiful!
Whiskers,
KY is gorgeous country too!

I'm not ruling hardly anywhere out at this point, since I can't buy until I sell. I thought maybe if I found my dream farm first, maybe we could do a deal contingent upon when mine sells. Or else, someday I'll sell, then I'll run around like a chicken with its' head cut off til I find a farm!

My 5 Kids live in FL, OR, LA, NY, GA. If I move based on where one of them lives, they may get an opportunity that requires they move anyway! So I'll just find a place that they all like to "come home to".

Meanwhile, it's fun looking...both peaceful and stressful!

Wade

[Mryooper]

the U.P is ok and better then where I lived for 20yrs before 1985. I can say the winters are long, but have been mild for the past few winters. I am not to much for southern weather , so the few hot days we have here in the summer I can take.I like cool , comfortable weather, As far ask the mosquitos go, I never had any trouble with them. You only get that if you live near pooled water. The no see'ums are the bad ones and deer flys lol.Now they make the day bad.

[wade clark]

Down here in Florida we have a few bugs...meat-eating flies and fire ants are bad. Grasshoppers that would be a hit in a horror movie. Love bugs splatting on your car. The mosquitoes come in two sizes...one is so small it can fly right through a screen without slowing down, the other is so big it just rips the screen door off the hinges and walks in!
My favorite though by far, sometimes we have billions of butterflies migrating! The air is just full of them!
Wade

[Ashbys]

Paul,

The area sounds great. And nice to hear there are still places which don't cost an arm and leg to own land. Here where I am , the prices of land have become crazy.
Were over 80 miles from DC, slightly NW but were a part of the DC metro area, and our land prices reflect it. Land here for undeveloped farm land is sell between 65K an acre and 30K an acre. Our state Goverment changed the tax structure so property tax is based upon apraised value. If it is comerical property propert tax is doubled, which includes rental properties, so finding any place to rent is 600. a month ot better. A 3 bedroom apt usally rents at 800 plus a month , with utitilies extra.
In the eastern panhandle of WV , the cost of living is as high if not higher as that of DC. The orchards are almost gone and the farms are being replaced with houses as fast as they can sell. Wade before I would consider WV as anything except a place to visit I think I would look more to Southren Ind, MO, Ark, Ky. All are much more reasonable in pricing and tax structure.

[Hi_Ho_Sliver]

Hey Wade, everyone else is tell you "where to go!" LOL maybe I should join in....about becoming a snowbird in Arizona ha ha.....

[Ashbys]

Dang Hi-Ho, isn't that like going from Hell to Hell's kicthen !